


those heavy days in june

by erytheia



Series: run away with me [1]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Cottage on the moors, Isolation, Living Together, M/M, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Violence, historical setting, izaya says eat the rich
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:40:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24755659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erytheia/pseuds/erytheia
Summary: “You’ll have to forgive me,” he says, yet Shizuo can’t help but feel like forgiveness is something Izaya has never strived for, a mocking lilt to the words that blurs the true intention behind them, “that this is all I have to offer. I wasn’t expecting any guests.”“I can see that,” Shizuo says, letting his eyes wander to what is clearly a spell book laying incriminatingly open on the table beside him. Izaya smiles, and it’s deadly, dripping with false penitence.“Again, forgive me.” He simpers, but there’s a bite to it this time, stinging against fragile skin.
Relationships: Heiwajima Shizuo/Orihara Izaya
Series: run away with me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790248
Comments: 24
Kudos: 72





	1. I: one

**Author's Note:**

> at last, I have been working on this since mid 2018, have been struggling along with it for the past 2 years, and now i'm saying fuck it and posting it now before my brain convinces me it's bad again. incredible sales pitch, but I do hope you enjoy it !
> 
> this is inspired loosely by an episode of penny dreadful (2x08 if you would like to watch) which I would definitely recommend! 
> 
> title: june by florence and the machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> word count: 6900+

Part One

Shizuo wakes to soft rain against his eyelids, and something heavy kicking ache into his ribs. He shifts once against the hard ground, eyes opening in a squint against the blank white of the sky, and the silhouette of a man blurring into focus against it.

“Who are you?” The stranger blinks in response, and Shizuo frowns at the hesitation, at the implication that his question was anything but a simple one.

There’s mud in his hair, plastered like wet clay against his cheek, and Shizuo grimaces as he pushes himself up. He knocks away the stranger’s foot as it lifts to kick again and the man smiles, tucking his hands into his pockets as he continues his appraisal, eyes lingering on the dirt staining his clothes. Shizuo feels oddly small beneath his gaze, but doesn’t yet have the heart to peel himself up off the ground.

“Nobody important.” The stranger says at last, curt. There’s an interest, though, that Shizuo doesn’t know what do to with. He’s never been one for manipulation, but he’s also never been in a situation such as this, never needed more than he’s had to offer. “Is there a reason you’re here?”

Shizuo bristles at the question, then sees a similar defensiveness shaping the hunch of the stranger’s shoulders. He relaxes, momentarily. “Not one of any importance.” It’s a challenge, one that the man catches onto immediately, smile turned cutting. Shizuo almost winces at the sharpness of it, hands dragging thick scores through the dirt as the man kicks his foot against the ground, eyes lighting up as the mud sprays against Shizuo’s chest. 

The annoyance prickling from beneath his skin is a familiar one, but not one that he’s necessarily learnt to deal with. Shizuo gets to his feet, and the stranger’s red eyes follow him. Shizuo sees his fingers flex from beneath the fabric of his pockets, but he makes no move to step back. This is something _un_ familiar, and Shizuo feels briefly thrown by the man’s neutrality towards him. It’s not often he gets to paint an image of himself in the mind of someone else, without the tainted strokes of rumours, of spite, twisting it into something he himself can hardly recognise. A monster, yet not of his own creation. 

He’ll start over, he decides, paint something new and real, something calm. The rush of his words to compensate for a silence a little too long find the man in a snap, harsh where he meant them to be soft. “Is there a reason _you’re_ here?” 

The stranger huffs, a dark eyebrow raised, lips pursed in faux consideration. It seems fake, like a mask, and Shizuo can’t help but find it distasteful following his attempt at sincerity. The prickling in his veins sharpens, and it unsettles him how the man seems to notice, his grin digging deeper into the reddened stretch of his cheeks.

He hums, “not really, other than the fact that I live here.” He gestures vaguely to the space behind him: to the greyish grass trembling in a wind more biting than Shizuo first realised, to a stretch of emptiness, hills, the dull landscape of the moors Shizuo hoped to lose himself in- to the small cottage standing firm in the midst of it all. Shizuo feels almost sheepish at his oversight, and wonders if staring at the strings tied loosely at the top of the man’s shirt will offset meeting his eyes. 

And maybe it’s pity the stranger feels, or maybe something more self-serving, like intrigue, but he hesitates, then spins on his feet, stepping back towards the house and calling Shizuo to follow with a light flick of his fingers over his shoulder. Shizuo, intrinsically, does not hesitate, and only when he ducks through the doorway and hears the door creak shut behind him does he feel the chill nipping at his bones, raising the hairs on his arms. 

It’s deceptively light inside, considering there’s only three small windows breaking up the flow of dark brick, glass panes thin and fogged. A small wooden table sits just off centre, the uneven legs supported by thin books and scraps of folded paper; there’s a sofa just next to it, battered and faded but with an air of comfort, particularly when compared to the hard ground of the moors that Shizuo woke to not minutes ago. There’s something personal to it, too, more books and scribble-ridden papers than Shizuo thinks he’s ever seen in one place scattered across every surface, some on the floor, colourful trinkets hanging from the walls, on string, twisting in the breeze from the just opened door.

“You can sit.” The stranger says. He keeps his back to Shizuo as he heads to a small cabinet in the corner, stretching up on his toes to gather cups and sprigs of something herbal looking. He takes a step back, then left, left again, crouching down in front of a square alcove cut into brick. There’s a small pile of wood piled next to it, crudely cut, and Shizuo loses himself briefly in the jagged edges. He ignores the man’s invitation to sit, instead staring at his back, hearing him stack the wood in the fireplace, frowning at the sudden whoosh of fire with no discernible source. 

It becomes clear, then, that the stranger isn’t paying Shizuo half as much mind as he is receiving in return, seemingly content to pretend he isn’t aware of his presence at all. Shizuo doesn’t attempt to coax any conversation out of him, instead stepping quietly over to the table and settling into the shaky wooden chair nearest to the door, feeling it strain and creak beneath his weight. Papers are strewn across the far side of the table, curling up at the edges, some yellowed from the harsh glare of the sun.

He leans further against the table if only to lessen the burden on the poor chair below him, eyes catching on an envelope near his bent arm, it’s once-enclosed letter crumpled as though by a fist. It’s horribly rude of him, he knows, to invade in the way in which he is, but Shizuo’s eyes follow a thick line of text before he can think to stop himself. The words seem to almost rip through the paper, written in an erratic, angry scrawl: ‘enough of this Izaya, you will tell us where she is or I swear upon-’. It’s cut off there by another piece of paper settled on top of it. Shizuo mulls over its contents, feels guilt, then nothing.

 _Izaya_ , he thinks absently, something cooling and sinking like a lead weight in his stomach when realises he said the name aloud. He doesn’t miss the way the man stiffens across the room, throwing an undiscernible look over his shoulder, eyes burning with a hint of accusation that Shizuo can barely bring himself to meet. Shizuo gestures towards the paper – apologetically, he hopes – but the man’s expression does not change, like he already knew the source of Shizuo’s newly acquired knowledge. Somehow, this only serves to make him feel worse.

“Yes.” The man says at last. He stands and heads over to the table, two steaming cups now in hand, cradled, “and you are?”

He places the cups down onto the table, sliding one carefully a few inches further. Shizuo hesitates for one pointless moment, enough to establish that yes, it is for him, and then reaches for the cup with eager hands, tasting something floral against his tongue. He stifles a groan at the warmth spreading through his chest, and only then does he remember the man’s – _Izaya’s_ – question, looking up quickly to find red eyes already upon him. He clears his throat, once, habitual, “Shizuo.”

Izaya hums, a nonchalance to it that’s overshadowed by the calculating edge to his gaze as he leans back against his chair. He doesn’t make any attempt to touch his own drink, even though Shizuo can see the minute trembling of his shoulders, hunched up slightly from the cold. Confusion seeps through into the haze of satisfaction that the tea has enveloped him in, but he snaps sharply back into focus when Izaya begins to speak.

“That drink is hot enough that it should have burnt through your throat, Shizuo.”

Shizuo berates himself for this slip, and doesn’t know whether it should sadden him that when he had wanted to paint himself a new calm picture, he had imagined himself to be _normal_.

“Ah.” It’s stilted, and he coughs faintly, wincing as Izaya’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline, “it is very hot.” He rubs at his neck slowly, one useless attempt at credibility. He is surprised, though, that such a boldfaced lie only serves to soften the light features of Izaya’s face into something more bemused than irritated. A silence falls, and Shizuo carefully sips more of his tea, blowing at it every few sips in a show that has the corners of Izaya’s lips quirking up. 

Then Izaya sighs out a breath, gesturing to the table. Shizuo is unsure if he means the tea or the clutter. Both, maybe.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” he says, yet Shizuo can’t help but feel like forgiveness is something Izaya has never strived for, a mocking lilt to the words that blurs the true intention behind them, “that this is all I have to offer. I wasn’t expecting any guests.” 

“I can see that.” It’s a little waspish, perhaps, in the face of the hospitality Izaya is extending to him, however reluctant it may be. Now it has been said, though, so Shizuo flicks his eyes to what is clearly a spell book laying incriminatingly open on the table next to him. Izaya smiles, and it’s deadly, dripping with false penitence. He reaches over calmly, but his movements are firm when he slams the book shut, thin fingers splayed out against worn leather binding.

“Again, forgive me.” He simpers, but there’s a bite to it this time, stinging against fragile skin. 

Intimidation is foreign to Shizuo, however, so he raises an eyebrow, blowing lightly at a stack of papers next the book. A hand slams on top of those as well.

“You’re a witch, then?” It’s so incredibly personal that Shizuo feels the drag of it against his throat as he summons the words. From Shizuo it’s not an accusation, but he’s not blind to the fact that that is precisely how it will come across. Denial would be futile, confirmation would be foolish, and Shizuo just about notices the hole he has dug himself into.

Izaya merely curls his lip, and Shizuo feels a chill roll down his spine at the unabashed hostility in his eyes. He’s honest, though, when he speaks. “I suppose so. In layman’s terms at least.” There’s a pride there, one that Shizuo is simultaneously stunned and pleased hasn’t been beaten out of him.

“What is it in your terms?”

“Private.” His smile is sickly sweet, and his chair screeches against the floor as he pushes it back at once, sweeping up the books and papers and disappearing up the rickety stairs that Shizuo is only now noticing. The fact that he only seems to notice things that are more trouble than they’re worth doesn’t escape him.

It’s amidst that thought that the other presence reappears, and he turns his head to see Izaya stood in front of the wall furthest from him, arms crossed over his chest. He’s leaning on one leg more heavily than the other in a try for composure, but Shizuo can see it for the defensive stance it is, nothing subtle to the way he keeps his back covered.

“Since I’ve been gracious enough to let you into my home, and you’ve felt welcomed enough to look through my things-” Shizuo knows not to react outwardly, but not once has he been able to ignore the prickly shame burning in his chest. “-why are you here?”

It’s not a question, as much as it was phrased as one. It’s unfortunate, then, that the answer is not one Shizuo is yet willing to part with.

“A break.” It’s intentionally vague, and Izaya’s eyes narrow with it. Shizuo answers his next question before he can voice it, and finds some satisfaction in the way Izaya’s teeth clench at his presumption, at his own predictability. Shizuo is sure it’s not something he’s faced with often. “From everything.”

Izaya doesn’t respond, but there’s something commiserative to the softening of his eyes. There’s a sorrow there, too, that Shizuo feels heavy and aching in the deepest parts of his chest.

-

He had stayed, after that, on the worn sofa in Izaya’s cottage, a thin blanket clutched in both hands until the rising moon had tugged him into unconsciousness. He had woken with the sun, eyelids heavy and fluttering against deep purple fabric. Something about the colour suits Izaya, somehow, and Shizuo wondered what exactly it could be, considering the mere hours he has known him. 

A short night had brightened into a longer day, and the fading and replacing of the sun each night beneath a rickety cottage roof had continued long beyond Shizuo’s expectations. The second day had passed with little talking on Izaya’s behalf, though clearly far too much on Shizuo’s, if the lack of blanket that night was anything to go by. Izaya’s generosity, it seems, is elusive, but not quite so much as the man himself. On their third sun together, Izaya was entirely absent, and his lack of presence served to make Shizuo feel more like a stranger in his home than any number of wary looks could.

His sleep that night was fitful, and he woke on this, the fourth day, to the smell of something herbal and the soft clattering of china. Izaya has his back to him, foot tapping a near irritating beat against the stone floor. Shizuo takes a moment to recover from the initial shock, sitting up and hissing at the coolness of the floor against blanket-warmed feet. Izaya turns at that, arms crossed loosely across his chest as his eyes look Shizuo up and down. He sniffs, once, nose wrinkling and lip curling up.

“Have you washed?” His words are slow, as if talking to a small child. Shizuo stiffens at the insult, mouth opening and closing on excuses that don’t exist. Izaya continues to stare him down, until Shizuo swears under his breath and dips his head. A loss.

“I didn’t know how.” It’s muttered, low, and Izaya nods to the moderate sized wooden tub in the corner. One dark eyebrow raises.

Shizuo inhales sharply, just once, trying to stop his eye from twitching. “Oh.”

There’s a sigh, then, and Izaya looks almost despairing, arms unfolding to rub violent circles over his eyes. Shizuo watches the way the skin creases. “Please tell me you’ve washed yourself before.”

Shizuo stands at that, fists clenching, unclenching, tight at his sides. “Of course I have!” Izaya huffs, something disbelieving in it, and Shizuo feels his ribs strain against calming breaths. “I just didn’t know I was- allowed.” 

“Right.” Shizuo glares daggers into Izaya’s back as he turns, willing them to _sting_ against irritating skin. “Well, you are allowed. I’d go as far as to say I’d encourage it, even.”

“That’s kind of you.” Shizuo snarls, folding the blanket next to him only to throw it down against the arm of the sofa, watching as the swathes of fabric reopen at the contact, draping over hidden shapes.

Izaya patters around by the cabinets for a few more minutes, then over to the fire, and Shizuo has just about rid his face of his more unsavoury thoughts by the time he turns again. He sits at the table carefully, setting down two drinks. Shizuo hesitates until Izaya clears his throat ungently, willing him into action. He sits across from Izaya, and this time downs the cup in one, delighting a little at the way Izaya’s lips part. His composure is back almost instantaneously, though, cutting short Shizuo’s attempt to revel in this, his first victory.

“So…- have you been enjoying the moors?”

Shizuo laughs at this, at the implication of _small talk_ , and Izaya hides his smirk in the steam of his drink. He blows at it softly, but his eyes are entirely on Shizuo. He sighs deeply, pursing his lips and mulling over his response. Honesty beats out politeness, which is something that Shizuo is well accustomed to, by now. “I can’t say I have.”

Izaya chokes delicately on his first sip, thin fingers flying up to clasp over his lips. Shizuo smiles, content to keep silent and watch the way Izaya’s shoulders shake, the way his breathing hitches around hot liquid. He recovers, eventually, and heaves out a heavy exhale, eyes narrowed but bright. “Ah,” his voice is strained, “completely understandable.”

Shizuo waits for a moment, allowing Izaya to make some headway into his drink before he responds in kind.

“Do you enjoy living in the moors?”

Izaya pauses, lowering his drink. The soft tap of it seems to echo throughout the room. He watches Shizuo, almost like he’s gaging something- gaging whether he’d be losing more than he could hope to gain by answering.

“No,” it’s blunt, more so than Shizuo was expecting, but then Izaya continues before Shizuo can think to unpack it. “Not really.” A wince. “I don’t _dis_ like it.”

This time it’s Shizuo’s brow that raises, and Izaya rolls his eyes once, but his mouth stays resolutely shut. Shizuo smiles again, and lets it lie. 

“Where were you yesterday?” Shizuo asks, an attempt at something lighter, friendlier, perhaps. He hasn’t known Izaya long, but already Shizuo can see that he is fickle, and he sighs once when Izaya merely sips from his drink, embodying that look Shizuo recalls from a few days prior. He adjusts, “Let me guess,” Izaya waits, Shizuo smiles, slightly, “it’s private?”

Izaya places his drink down with a flourish, clapping his hands once before clasping them beneath his chin, the smile too wide on his face. “Exactly that. You’re learning, Shizuo.” 

Then Izaya's standing, each mood as fleeting as the last, gathering the cups in his hand and sweeping over to set them down by a cupboard. Shizuo laments the possibility of this being Izaya’s next disappearing act, so is pleasantly surprised when Izaya turns to face him, contemplative. He tuts, rubbing pale fingers over his face before stepping across the room and throwing himself onto the sofa with a soft _whump_. “You can help me with something today.”

Shizuo nods uselessly – for Izaya isn’t even facing him – and stands up with a tad too much eagerness, watching as Izaya flinches at the screech of his chair against the floor. He can’t see Izaya’s face, but the smirk there is blatant in his voice as he slumps further down on the sofa, inky black hair slinking down out of sight. “Ah ah, not so fast.” An arm flops over the side, fingers circling condescendingly through the air in place of Izaya’s smug face. “Wash first, Shizuo dear.”

Shizuo grits his teeth audibly, but his face melts into a pleased smile as he walks across the room. Izaya’s exhale is quick and tight and more telling than words, when Shizuo’s mud-crusted shirt plasters across his face.

-

The sun is glaring, today, throwing painfully bright light against Shizuo’s downturned eyes and the shield of his hand above them. It catches on the distant horizon, blurring the moors to white against the deep, almost-purple of the clouds. Izaya had glanced at the sky an hour previously and commented on the impending rain as if the sky was not blue, then, as if the only clouds in sight were not wispy and white. Yet, an hour had passed as steadily as the filling of Izaya’s basket, and now the clouds are dark and heavy with promise above them.

Shizuo sports an identical basket over his arm, this one full of an array of vegetables, flowers, sprigs of something herbal that he recognises as being for Izaya’s tea. He had offered to help in a way more substantial than his current role as courier, following slowly after Izaya as he kneels in the high grass, inspecting every green leaf before placing it in his basket or throwing it aside. Izaya had snorted from his place on the ground, eyes not straying from the plant in his hands as he muttered something about not wanting another accidental poisoning on his hands. Shizuo’s lips had parted upon scepticism, but Izaya had brushed the forming words aside as he shoved the first basket into his arms.

As the second basket fills to the brim Izaya’s carefully maintained silence wavers, and the prior days of voiceless curiosity take the form of mundane questions on where Shizuo’s from, his family, whatever job he may have had before packing up and fleeing to the moors. _Fleeing_ was spoken with an edge to it that Shizuo had ignored, answering the questions with a carefree ease that Izaya doesn’t attempt to mirror. He dances around any answers pertaining to himself, but Shizuo can’t seem to mind, instead finding an easy rhythm in discussing the ones he loves, a comfort that he hadn’t realised he’d been missing since he left everything behind.

“Got any friends Shizuo?” Izaya asks as he gets to his feet. He’s walking alongside Shizuo now, pausing occasionally to bend down and pluck something with pretty petals from the ground, adding it to his basket. Shizuo finds his focus lost elsewhere on the moors for a moment too long, and Izaya pulls it back via a sharp elbow into his side.

“What?” He frowns until the fragments of question fall into the shape of coherence in his mind, “oh. Yeah, obviously.”

“ _Obviously_.” Izaya mimics, but it lacks the heat to muster anything resembling irritation in Shizuo. He shrugs once and refuses to amend his response, listening instead to the soft tread of his steps against the brittle grass rather than Izaya’s sigh at his side.

“Will they be missing you, by any chance?”

Shizuo falters at that, wondering how something so starkly obvious has escaped him thus far. “They’ve probably noticed I’m gone by now,” he muses, speaking aloud more to make sense of his own thoughts than for Izaya’s benefit. “Well,” he amends, frowning, “Celty will have done.” 

As lost in his own thoughts as he is, Shizuo doesn’t catch the minute stumble in Izaya’s step, or the way his shoulders rise with tension rather than cold. “Celty?” His voice is carefully light, almost artificially so, but this too Shizuo misses. “Girlfriend?”

 _That_ is what catches his attention, and Shizuo chokes at what he mistakes for misunderstanding. He laughs, “Ah, no. Best friend.” A pause, another frown, “I don’t think Shinra would be too pleased with me otherwise.” Again, he’s musing, unaware of how the earth feels that much more unsteady beneath Izaya’s feet.

Izaya stops walking, and Shizuo’s line of thought fades away as he stops too, lest he walk into him. He stares forward at Izaya, at all of his sharp lines and pale skin, as words coated in something acidic, like poison, drip from trembling lips. “And how is _Shinra_?”

“You know him?”

“Knew.” There’s something there, in the fists Izaya’s hands form at his sides, in the thickness of his voice, a wound still painfully raw. At his own sides, Shizuo feels his fingers flicker as if to reach out, to offer a comfort he doesn’t yet have the right to. To offer his condolences, for a sorrow he doesn’t know. Izaya flinches then, and his entire being seems to thaw, shoulders sinking even as they retain their harsh lines. Shizuo doesn’t think he’s ever before seen a mask forced back into place. “How’s his clinic?”

“They’re doing okay,” he lets his voice trail off in the hands of wariness, but feels woefully unprepared for the fragile silence that follows. Izaya begins to walk forward again, and Shizuo follows, twisting his next words into something a little closer to appeasement. “They moved it to a new building recently. Closer to the market.” His remembrance brings with it a prickle of heat, of shame, and he sighs, quickening his pace to fall into step alongside Izaya as his voice softens.

“I didn’t stick around long enough to see if everything turned out okay.” 

Izaya tilts his head towards him at that, facing up to the dark, heavy sky, a bitter smile tugging up his lips. “Then the two of you have that in common.”

-

A few days have passed since their trip out onto the moors, and Shizuo has decided to keep his silence for once, to not again mention his friends, Shinra, his old life. It’s harder than he had imagined now that the familiar shape of them draws comfort in Shizuo’s mind, but Izaya seems calmer this way. The lessened tension in his shoulders is one Shizuo is happy to facilitate after all Izaya has done for him, thus far.

In that same vein of returning the favour, of the prickly feeling of _owing_ something, Shizuo finds himself wandering the perimeter of Izaya’s cottage, cleaning up the scraggly emergence of weeds, shifting piles of rain-damp wood, peering inside barrels and boxes with that irrational unease that suggests something strange will jump straight from it.

Izaya had barely spared him a glance when he’d asked if there was anything he could do, shrugging his shoulders once and muttering something about cleaning the mess outside if he wants. Shizuo had torn his eyes from the spell book braced beneath Izaya’s fingers, trying to hide his slight disgruntlement that the mundane task of cleaning is the way he’ll be spending his afternoon. Izaya had caught on regardless, of course, looking over at Shizuo with a smirk shaped like a tease tilting up his lips.

‘Oh, please sir,’ he had lilted, hands clasped against his chest, eyes fake-wide, ‘a _witch_ like me could hardly lift all those heavy boxes outside, only a big, strong man such as yourself could possibly-’ Shizuo had slammed the door behind himself at that, cutting off Izaya’s faux plea in favour of smiling out at the moors, then shaking his head to rid himself of it once he realises.

It can’t have been long since he began, but Shizuo has already cleared one side of the cottage, finding a calm ease to the task of shifting the mostly empty boxes aside, of crumbling wet wood between his hands and spreading it across the ground around him. It’s only once he has lost his mind in the steady repetition that it’s dragged harshly back to focus, zeroing in on the rusted gun he finds hidden away at the bottom of one of the boxes.

The weight of it is heavy and familiar, and Shizuo wonders if he can ignore the minute trembling of his hands if he simply clenches them tighter around cool metal.

Izaya is sat exactly where he was when Shizuo comes back inside, gun held almost reverently in both hands. “Izaya,” he starts, clearing his throat embarrassedly when he hears the unintentional rasp of it. Izaya doesn’t look up, but hums once in acknowledgement, and Shizuo swallows against the sudden dry of his mouth.

“Is this yours?” Izaya does look up at that, closing his book against a thin piece of fabric to narrow his eyes at the gun in Shizuo’s hands. There’s a brief flash of detached recognition, and now he’s looking up at Shizuo with a curious tilt to his head, turning slightly in his chair.

“I suppose.” He waves one blasé hand in the air, pursing his lips as he considers is words, and Shizuo before him. “It was just lying around when I got here. I don’t know if it still works.”

Shizuo huffs response, attention drawn back to the gun as he clicks it open, eyes catching on the near full chamber of bullets. Izaya’s eyebrow raises from across the room, his interest slightly peaked by Shizuo’s overt engrossment. “Do you know how to use it?”

The weight of the gun in his hands steals his attention from Izaya’s question, and he mutters a distracted non-answer as he heads back out of the door and into the wind.

-

Shizuo had placed the gun down once he’d gotten back outside, and gone back to cleaning with the futile hope that he could rid his mind of the weapon, and force the shaking from his hands. The box of ammunition he’d found a few boxes later had ground his efforts to dust, however, so now Shizuo is stood facing the empty moors, staring at the glass bottles he’d placed in a neat row against the shrinking horizon. The metal feels almost hot in his hand.

The first shot seems impossibly loud, and the shards of dark green glass catch against the sun, throwing painful light into his eyes to match the jagged ache in his chest. He fires a second, and a third, flinching at the sound, the weight in his hands, the long-gone echoes of his past brought startlingly to his new present.

There’s a barbarism in the implication of each shot that shrivels something hot behind his ribs, along with the reminder of how he’d once desperately sought humanity in this, in something so violent he tastes acid on his lips. It had seemed a change, at the time, a way of fighting that had separated himself from the unnatural weight of his fists. He had agreed to be taught, and had learnt just as willingly, but he could never quite find the comfort he’d been craving, could never find that connection to himself as normal, as _human_ , with the cool metal in his hands.

Shizuo shakes his head against the remnants of his past, firing more shots against the glass, red, blue, green. Only when a throat clears itself from a few metres away does Shizuo let his arm drop back to his side, and only then does he notice the desperate heave of his chest, air spilling out from between his teeth. In some ways, the silence is sharper than the shattering of glass now that he can hear the pad of Izaya’s feet against the grass, can hear the uncomfortable shape of judgement before it even begins to form between them.

Izaya stops, but Shizuo can’t bring himself to lift his head, at least until he has returned the air to his jerking lungs.

“That’s a yes, then.”

His words disregard the fragile fear of Shizuo’s expectations and have his head flying up towards Izaya, eyes settling with disbelief on the slight curve of his lips, and the open neutrality in his eyes that Shizuo was certain would house nothing but judgement. “What?”

“I asked you if you know how use it earlier.” A nod to the gun in his hands. Shizuo lets it drop to the floor, and Izaya huffs once. “Clearly you were too awestruck to answer, you could barely tear your eyes from it.”

“Shut up.” Shizuo mutters, without heat, as he feels the weight lift from his chest now that the gun is harmless in the mud at his feet. 

Izaya sighs at the lack of response Shizuo presents him with, mind already skipping onto other things with an ease Shizuo hopes he can imitate. “You better clean up all that glass. I’m not shredding my feet just because you wanted to play soldiers.”

“Of course I will.” Shizuo snaps, some of the tension in his shoulders returning in the familiar shape of irritation. Izaya steps closer, and this time Shizuo looks at him, properly, and sees the cross of his arms across his chest, as if they’ll offer a defence from the cold that his thin white shirt couldn’t even begin to.

“Would you mind stopping for a while?” Shizuo glances pointedly at the gun on the floor, and Izaya’s smile is sickly sweet as he continues regardless. “I have a client coming over, and I can’t exactly afford to have her scared away by some gun wielding maniac in my back garden.” 

Shizuo pauses at that, stuck on the narrow insight into Izaya’s life on the moors before he was a part of it. “Client?”

“Yes. I do have to make a living somehow.” Shizuo raises an eyebrow upon scepticism, and Izaya grins. “Honest work, you know.” 

A laugh escapes Shizuo’s lips at that, and he huffs once, holding back the urge to shove gently at Izaya’s shoulder. “Yeah, right.”

-

He had returned to the side of the cottage after that to collect a small wooden broom in order to clear the glass, couldn’t resist holding the shape of it between his legs as he walks back over to the colourful shards. He keeps his eyes firmly on Izaya and the increasing downturn of his lips. “Is this how you use it?”

Izaya’s cheeks glow a deep red that even the cold could not explain, and his shoulders hunch up further against his head. “You’re truly hilarious, Shizuo. Really.”

Shizuo frowns, tilting his head to one side, “what, am I doing it wrong?”

Izaya sniffs, haughty, eyes narrowing as Shizuo laughs. “It’s not even _mine_ you insufferable bastard.” Shizuo snorts, removing the broom from between his legs to begin to gather up the glass.

“Let me guess again, it was just lying around when you got here?”

“Ha.” Izaya hisses, turning away from Shizuo to frown out at the moors. “I can do magic, I can’t fucking fly.”

Shizuo raises his hands in surrender and Izaya curls his lip, keeping his eyes resolutely focused on the empty stretch of grass before them. He stays there until Shizuo has finished cleaning up the glass, the shivering of his shoulders almost violent. Shizuo frowns, mouth opening to ask why he doesn’t just go back inside when Izaya drops his arms to his sides, and Shizuo turns to see a young woman coming up the path towards them.

She’s wrapped in a thick shawl, clutching it tightly against her chest as though the wind is trying to rip it from her. The stretch of the moors seems almost endless around them – to Shizuo it’s calming in its emptiness, but the woman’s eyes are wide and distraught, looking for all the world like something’s going to jump out at her. Shizuo’s grip loosens on the broom in his hand, and he wishes he could offer something more than a dazed stare as Izaya approaches the woman, speaking hushed words too quiet for him to catch.

They’re moving, now, up towards the cottage as the sky darkens. Izaya’s hand is on her shoulder, and Shizuo wonders whether its intended as guidance or assurance. Both seem foreign, with Izaya, leaving Shizuo to face the picture he has made of him in his mind, looking for flaws that should be glaring, but can’t be. Simply, he doesn’t really know Izaya yet, and the chill such a thought summons in his chest rivals that of the wind sweeping across the moors.

Once the door closes behind them Shizuo turns back to the glass, discarding the last of it with a careless detachment that would be dangerous, if he were anyone else. After, he pauses, toes curling in his shoes as he debates heading back inside. He doesn’t want to interrupt, but eventually it’s his growing eagerness to know exactly what he’d _be_ interrupting – along with the first drop of heavy rain against his scalp – that has him stepping into the door, cursing the creak of it as it falls inward.

He shuts the door firmly at his back, and kicks the mud from his shoes into a pile he knows Izaya will bemoan, later. Izaya, presently, is sat at the table across from the woman, two cups of something steaming in front of them, mirrored hands curled around the pale ceramic. 

He’s not sure if he can make it out clearly, from here, but the trembling of the woman’s hands is too violent to be from mere cold, confirmed by the soft pitch of Izaya’s, low on comfort.

Shizuo’s staring, and then so is the woman, eyes wide upon a familiar sort of trepidation that tightens something in Shizuo’s chest. Izaya follows her gaze, and blinks slowly at Shizuo before turning back, shaking his head and muttering something that Shizuo can only assume is a dismissal. It seems to put the woman at ease, somewhat, or at least back to the same level of _un_ ease she was moments prior, so Shizuo tasks himself with becoming as unimposing as he can manage, sinking down onto the sofa. There’s a book next to him, one of Izaya’s that he had cared little enough about to willingly let Shizuo handle.

The paper’s soft and worn beneath his fingertips as he handles it, so Shizuo attempts to lose himself in the almost illegible words as the light fades and fizzles out around them. It seems like hours have passed before he hears movement behind him, and turns his head just so to see Izaya and the woman standing, heading to the door, pausing once they reach it.

The woman has some papers clutched in her hands, an envelope tucked against her belt, and Shizuo is busy puzzling away at the mundaneness off the scene when the woman jumps into Izaya’s arms, hands clasped tightly in the back of his shirt. Shizuo turns against the back of the sofa, quiet, to watch the stiffness of Izaya’s shoulders ease into only slight discomfort. He returns the hug one-armed, eventually, and Shizuo has to fight the feeling he’s witnessing something he shouldn’t be. Not exactly intimate, but private enough that the back of his neck prickles.

She’s teary, now, eyes shining bright in the candlelight, but no longer looks as frail and fearful as she did making her way up the winding path through the moors. A few more words are exchanged, there’s a slight tilt of his head, and then the woman steps out into the darkness.

The click of the door is gentle behind her, and Izaya sighs once they’re alone again, rubbing at his eyes with a force that drags against pale skin. His footsteps are eerily silent against the floor, but the sofa creaks as he throws himself down against it, knocking the book from Shizuo’s hands. It thuds against the floor, but he doesn’t seem to hear it.

Izaya sighs again, his chest seeming to shake with it, and rests his head against the back of the sofa, eyes closed. He makes no sign of it, but something about the crackle in the air has Shizuo certain he’s about to say something. He sits, waits.

Izaya’s lips part, and the words are everything and nothing like what Shizuo imagined they would be, hot and live, like the snap of electricity in the air, of barely restrained lightening.

“Human’s pride themselves on being of superior intellect, of _understanding_ so much better than any other species, even than each other.” Shizuo doesn’t interrupt, only listens, watching as Izaya’s lip curls and his eyes spark red. “People lie to themselves that way, at least. We think we understand everything and everyone, yet when things go wrong we blame the world, or the gods, or just about anything that avoids pointing a finger at ourselves.”

He turns to Shizuo, now, stare blank but pointed- challenging, almost. “The world isn’t cruel, Shizuo, but humans try their hardest to make it so. You would have thought, for all out perceived advancement, that by now we would have learned how to forgive.”

With each word Shizuo can see the threads of Izaya’s being, his past, hanging in the air between them, close enough to touch with curious fingers. Shizuo inhales slowly, once, twice, voice soft. “We haven’t?”

“Not those of us that matter,” - _matter_ is said with an edge to it, a bitterness that burns Shizuo’s own tongue- “people see true forgiveness as a slight upon their character, or a weakness. It all comes down to reputation, and _dignity_ , and the lengths people will go to to destroy people and then justify it in the eyes of others.” He goes quiet, as if his voice can hardly bare to dislodge the air around it. “How is that all that matters?”

Izaya stands, then, stepping up to the fire before him as his shadow flickers and stretches across the brick. He picks up one of the sheets lying in a heap against the wall and starves the fire beneath its weight, until his shadow is gone and he’s alone in the dark, only his soft silhouette against the moonlight.

It’s silent, for a while, something tense and thick in the air between them- the oppressive heaviness after a storm.

“Humanity is selfish, Shizuo, did you know that?”

Shizuo considers this, considers the way his breath leaves his chest, the way he’s certain of Izaya’s eyes on him with the assurance of nothing but a feeling _._ He speaks, and his voice is low, like the steady the roll of thunder in the night. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Izaya considers him in turn, and now his eyes are bright white through the dark. A cloud shifts, the moon shines just that little bit brighter, and something in Izaya’s expression changes as he hums out something Shizuo takes as approval. Then he is turning away and up, into the attic and out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is in part a character study, Izaya can be such a tragic character so I wanted to play around with his loneliness to see if it could twist his outlook from love to hate. with this there may be a few minor motivational differences from his canon portrayal, but mostly he is as awful as ever 
> 
> thank you so much for reading!
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/lostchuu/)


	2. I: two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> word count: 4200+

About a week has passed before Izaya asks the inevitable, and begins scratching at the surface of Shizuo’s presence upon the moors. Shizuo has wondered whether the initial lack of questions was Izaya’s way of respecting his privacy, or if he simply doesn’t care, and had come to settle somewhere between the two; Izaya always seems fonder of remaining in the spaces between the lines.

When he does ask, they’re sat across from each other at Izaya’s rickety table, and he starts with the exact amount of tact that Shizuo has come to expect from him.

“Why are you here, Shizuo?”

Shizuo is lost for a moment, somewhere on the line between literal and metaphorical that Izaya so loves to skirt. Izaya rolls his eyes in his impatience.

“What makes you such a monster that you had to run away into the wilderness?” He clarifies, and Shizuo winces at his phrasing, at the accusation of _monster_ that he can never quite dig out from beneath his skin. He calms himself with the knowledge that Izaya couldn’t know this, fragile as it may be.

“Is that what you’re doing?” Shizuo keeps his eyes steady across the space between them, and Izaya meets them, accepting the challenge despite the caution straining his fingers intermittently – tap tap tap against wood. “Running away?”

Izaya breathes, steady, slow. His eyes narrow, but they lack the sharpness they did at the beginning of a week that has begun to stretch out into the unknown. He places his fork down deliberately, mouth set in a stubborn line. “I asked first.”

Shizuo sighs, and wonders just how he can begin to explain himself and everything he has come to stand for to someone who doesn’t already hate him for it. Izaya’s perception of him may not be quite right, yet, but it’s his own, and it’s _neutral_ , and Shizuo finds he really can’t bring himself to ruin it.

“I’m…strong.” He settles on, stumbling over the words and their mundanity.

“Oh,” Izaya’s eyebrows furrow and he sighs heated air through pursed lips, leaning back against his chair and picking up his fork, twirling it against the wood of the table. The wood curls. “Is that all?”

Shizuo feels a familiar prickle of irritation at this, somehow – at Izaya’s lack of accusations and anger and blame, then something _un_ familiar, churning his stomach with its novelty. He’s never before wanted to brag, at least not so earnestly. He wonders if it will always feel so sickening.

“Uh, really strong.” Izaya stares at him in the wake of his addition with a small smirk on his lips as his fork scores soft grooves into the table.

“‘ _Uh, really strong’_.” His voice falls low in mockery, and Shizuo raises an eyebrow at him before it drags back down again as he reconsiders Izaya’s question.

“Inhumanly.” The word is a little bitter, dry against the wet of his tongue, but yet again Izaya doesn’t resort to distaste as Shizuo is so prone to seeing in others. He would almost think that Izaya is oblivious to his discomfort and the severity he tries to shape his words with if he didn’t know him better, by now.

“So,” Izaya hums, high in his throat, rocking back on the legs of his chair, “could you pick this up?” He holds the fork before Shizuo’s face, and the glint of the metal and everything it implies makes Shizuo’s eye twitch.

He doesn’t deign Izaya with a response, for once, and feels something sink like a lead weight in his stomach when his silence only makes Izaya’s smile stretch wider.

“This?” It’s his china cup, this time, then “this?”, as his fingers sweep across the top of one of the rickety wooden chairs. 

“I’m sure I could if I tried hard enough.” Shizuo growls, fists heavy but forcibly still against the table.

“Oh, I just got _shivers_.” Izaya grins, and Shizuo’s scowl digs so deep it hurts. He exhales once, and then leans back in his chair, crossing his arms to match Izaya’s loose, challenging stance.

“I could pick you up.” He offers, in an attempt to force down his side of the scales.

Izaya blinks slowly, at last caught off guard even if only for a second. His fingers still where they were drumming incessant patterns against the table, eyes gone fractionally wider. “Yes,” he recovers, and shoots Shizuo a dry look with his head tipped to one side, pretty black strands falling over his forehead, his eyes, “but as much as I loathe to admit it, that isn’t exactly an _inhuman_ feat of strength.”

Shizuo grins, wolfish, baring teeth, and Izaya tuts and pushes away from the table, his attempt at _blasé_ undermined completely by the ruddy pink rising on his cheeks. Shizuo’s smile widens. A win.

-

Izaya stops sulking after a little while, and lures Shizuo further out of the moors than he has been since he entered them, under the guise of a ‘favour’. The walk doesn’t take as long as Shizuo had expected, and soon the thick green canopy of a forest offers them respite from the glaring sun, the trees tall and close around them. The village, too, is close, and Shizuo can’t help the way his hackles rise at the sudden proximity to everything he has been trying to leave behind. If Izaya feels the same he doesn’t show it, back straight and steps confident until he stops in a small clearing, spinning on his heels to smile up at Shizuo.

“Show me.” He clarifies no further, and Shizuo can’t help but grit his teeth upon learning the purpose of their impromptu trip, equal parts irritation and something that feels a little too much like unease.

“How in the hell.”

“How should I know?” Izaya shrugs, lips pulling dangerously close to a pout, “I’m not the one who’s _inhumanly strong_.” There’s a scepticism there that Shizuo doesn’t want to challenge, content to keep himself calm and careful and _human_ as long as Izaya is before him.

If there is one thing he has learnt thus far about Izaya, though, it’s that he’s stubborn, so Shizuo’s refusal to play along with his request has them both digging their heels into the soft ground, displacing the mud beneath their feet, barely blinking, twitching, breathing. Izaya’s insistence stems from the empty space in his mind where Shizuo could be, one day, but for now is blank. Shizuo would keep it that way, indefinitely, if only to keep the fear from his eyes.

Neither of them back down, and neither of them expected so from the other, but eventually their impasse is interrupted by the sound of hooves against brown leaves, and Shizuo shoves Izaya behind himself in an instinctive form of panic, senses overwhelmed and sparking at the unknown.

Seconds pass, heavy like Shizuo’s thudding heart in his chest, and then a man comes into sight from the undergrowth, his horse large and panting clouds into the damp afternoon air. He sees Shizuo first, and then the implication of Izaya behind him, slowing with an unkind yank of the reins in his hands, a sneer curling his lips down on hostility.

“Well who’d have thought,” his voice reaches them in a rasp, harsh and mocking in a way that has Shizuo’s hands curling into fists at his sides, “the monster ran away to join the witch.” Monster, Shizuo is used to, but he way he spits the word _witch_ catches sharp in Shizuo’s chest. The contempt is at odds with the gentle placidity that Izaya falls into when sat before his spell book, and the circle of the teary woman’s arms about his neck; the soft form of relief.

There’s the cadence of a threat there, too, and Shizuo isn’t blind to the fact that Izaya’s fragile peace up on the moors is reliant on the barb remaining a mere accusation, carefully skirting the edge of rumour, of truth, without entering it.

The man is jeering at them with all the confidence status provides, and Shizuo feels a slight movement as Izaya ducks under his extended arm and comes to stand before him. Shizuo fights the urge to tug him back, instead trying to find a modicum of control in the brush of the toes of his shoes against the back of Izaya’s, both too close yet too far at once. His breath shifts strands of Izaya’s hair, but he draws his focus back to the man towering on horseback above them only to find he, too, is entirely absorbed in Izaya.

His smile is a crude imitation of happiness, tainted by something sour, smug. “How is life out on the moors, then?” The reins creak in his hands, and his eyes flash. “I didn’t think your type would invite so many women into his home. Of an evening, no less.” 

Shizuo starts at the implication of surveillance and the tension it brings to Izaya’s shoulders, slight enough to be unnoticeable unless one is looking, which Shizuo irrefutably is. Izaya recovers, though, with a speed Shizuo has come to envy, head tipping to one side in a show of innocence that Shizuo wonders if anyone has ever fallen for.

“Afternoon,” Shizuo can feel the shape of his smile, of acid, as though its melting into shape through the back of his skull. “I don’t discriminate against anyone who wants to enjoy my company. Oh, and you must remind your lovely wife to come see me again.” A flash of teeth, snapping, and Izaya cuts off abruptly, words twisting into faux apology, “she does write to you, doesn’t she?” 

Shizuo can’t help but feel as though the nuances of their exchange are lost on him due to his relatively recent presence in Izaya’s particular timeline, but it doesn’t take understanding or sense to watch as the man’s face begins to tremble. Izaya huffs disdain beneath his breath, and Shizuo gulps in the borrowed air greedily.

What’s unexpected is the way the man’s arm raises as if to strike, and the way Izaya steps instinctively back into Shizuo, their proximity barring a successful escape. Shizuo somehow moves before he even wills himself to, halting the man’s wrist and the backhand it was forming in the air. He holds tight, holds to _bruise_ , and the man’s eyes once again rise to Shizuo’s, affronted. It almost seems as though he forgot Shizuo was there, and Shizuo temporarily loses himself in the novelty of not being perceived as the biggest threat.

“Don’t.” Shizuo says once he returns to himself, and the man snarls, yanking his hand back. Shizuo lets him. The man pauses, his glare gone vindictive at his impending loss, and now he’s tilting forward and spitting in Izaya’s face.

Izaya is already moving, however, with all the foresight expectation affords him – just in time for the spit to skim past his head and land, damp, on Shizuo’s waistcoat.

Izaya turns with wide eyes, then looks up to Shizuo’s face, but all Shizuo can feel is the heat of his blood pumping through his veins, and all he can see is red, then blue, green, like the shattered glass out on the moors. He pushes Izaya aside with more force than needed and hears him fall against the forest floor with a soft crunch of leaves.

The man is hesitant now, but his sudden alertness loosens his grip on the reins as Shizuo closes in, yanking him from his horse and lifting him into the air with a fist tight at his throat. The strain of Shizuo’s own throat is the only indication that he’s yelling, the unrelenting roar of sound in his ears drowning out anything beyond the man before him and the fury pooling hot light in his bones.

The man is shouting, too, face red and contorted from the grip around his neck as he claws uselessly at Shizuo’s face, the blood beneath his fingernails the only assurance that he’s even making contact. Shizuo feels his very being _shake_ , and then he’s snarling something inhuman and thick, shredding the skin of his throat as it tears its way out into the forest. He takes a heavy step forward, throwing the man into a tree, only the crack of the impact audible above the once silence of the woods. 

Coughing blood from his lips, the man stumbles to his feet and then horse, only finding the bravery to speak once the reins are back in his hands.

“You will pay for this,” he spits, and then his eyes are darting to Izaya on the floor mere feet away, whose eyes haven’t once left Shizuo, “you too, _little witch.”_

The thud of hooves against the ground alerts Shizuo to the man’s departure, but Shizuo is still stuck seething with near irrational anger, hot and burning against delicate skin. He yells something incoherent, more raw sound than words, and kicks a nearby tree until it snaps, the harsh creak of it repeated once, twice, again again again against the trees in its wake.

He’s left, then, with heavy breaths that strain his ribs until they creak, and a soft gasp from behind him. It’s a stark reminder of Izaya’s presence, his omnipresent witness.

The calm after the storm is one that always seems to escape him, but eventually Shizuo settles back into himself, and the forest is too still around him.

“Shizuo?” Izaya’s voice is uncharacteristically slight – uncharacteristically _careful_ – and Shizuo tries to stay the cracks threatening the heat in his chest.

He turns, homing in on Izaya who is still lay on his back on the floor where Shizuo threw him, propped up on his elbows and staring at Shizuo with big, wide eyes. There’s a rush of something cold deep inside him, everything he’d been trying to protect in his escape to moors turning to ice. He can’t keep track of any thought for too long in the aftermath of his loss of control, but pleading words repeat themselves over and over in his head, a mantra- desperate.

_Please don’t let him hate me._

Izaya speaks again, voice quiet, hoarse, “are you..?”

“I’m okay.” Shizuo grunts, lies.

He wills himself to approach to Izaya, steps slow, and thinks despairingly about what he’ll do if Izaya flinches back. 

Izaya doesn’t, just watches him with wary, but steady – oh, so steady Shizuo could almost _cry_ – eyes. Relief washes over him, drowns him, and Shizuo’s sudden exhaustion runs so deep he’s surprised he’s still on his feet. He reaches down, forward, gripping Izaya’s upper arms and lifting him to his feet, dry leaves falling from his shirt to the forest floor.

Izaya stays lax in his hold, his beautiful, _steady_ eyes watching Shizuo just as fervently as he is being watched in turn. His breath catches, and he reaches a hand up, thin fingers brushing against one of the cuts on Shizuo’s cheek that he hadn’t felt until this moment. Shizuo tips his head down to accommodate Izaya’s sudden rapture, but winces when gentle fingers brush over one of the deeper cuts, the pain sudden and stinging. Izaya pulls his hand back, but not once do his eyes leave Shizuo’s. His lips tilt up into something that couldn’t be a grin but couldn’t be anything else, and Shizuo forgets how to think.

“You’re a monster,” Izaya whispers, and Shizuo doesn’t think he’s ever before heard it said with awe _._

-

Night has fallen by the time they return to the cottage; the air choked with mist, the sky with stars.

Izaya hasn’t spoken since the utterance of _monster_ that near cleaved Shizuo’s world in two, but the soft press against his shoulder once the door shuts behind them speaks louder than words, than the roar of wind, of waves, in Shizuo’s ears. He sits obediently, pushing the chair out from the table to keep his eyes tethered to Izaya.

Izaya, who had never looked at him with more than the kindness of neutrality, until today. Izaya, who is still here even after witnessing all that the world gave Shizuo to offer, that wicked strength that steals the sleep from his nights. Izaya, who Shizuo can’t tear his eyes from as he flits about the room lighting candles that soak the room in warm light, feet silent against the cold floor.

“You don’t hate me.” It’s tentative, just enough unsurety to tilt the words up at the end.

“No.” He says, gentle and all the more fragile for it.

Izaya’s silence seems deliberate, and Shizuo can’t help but feel to blame for it. He thinks back to not an hour earlier, and how the initial raise of a fist, of derision, had shattered Shizuo’s hard-won composure into the gnarled form of rage; hot red against the calming green of the forest. Shizuo had clawed his way back to himself in the aftermath, but to be left with only an Izaya as blank as he was upon their first meeting out upon the moors sobers Shizuo a little, and leaves him feeling childishly as though he’s being denied something that was never offered. He hadn’t expected Izaya’s neutrality, but even the slightest hint of it has him craving more, craving that simple acceptance that soothes the fire in his veins.

“Izaya..” Shizuo sighs, but Izaya remains in the safety of his silence, approaching Shizuo with a small bowl of water, fingers clenched in old cloth. He stops between Shizuo’s legs, and his refusal to meet his eyes has frustration burning in Shizuo’s chest, and a concern that has thus far been absent, around Izaya. There’s something about him now, though, eyes intense as he dabs at the cuts on Shizuo’s cheek, that seems so unbearably vulnerable, for all that he tries to hide it.

Izaya is keeping himself carefully still, but his brows furrow as Shizuo winces at a drag of too harsh cloth against too open skin, the tension at the corners of his mouth one that Shizuo wishes he knew how to ease.

“ _Izaya_.”

He does respond to this: a small shake of his head, heavy drops of water breaking the silence as he wrings out the pinkening cloth with too-violent jerks. The distance between them is slight enough for Shizuo to attempt to bridge it, to reach out, to _touch_ , boldened by his desperation to lessen Izaya’s hesitancy, their joint frustration. 

Shizuo lets his shoulders sink free of tension and throws his caution to the biting wind of the moors. He reaches forward at last and grips Izaya’s chin, about as soft as he thinks he’s ever held anything. Softer than he thought he was capable of. This is Izaya, though, and a deep breath in, out, drains that itch beneath his skin, keeping his fingers gentle as Izaya’s own slip from the cuts on his face. He tugs slightly, willing Izaya’s gaze to his own. A request. Izaya complies, but can’t hide the ghost of a sigh slipping from his lips.

“He tried to hit you.” It isn’t a question, yet Shizuo finds some semblance of calm in the act of Izaya taking it as one, a structure they need in order to handle the threat of sharp edges.

Izaya’s pause is meditative, again – _careful_ , but he deems the none-question safe enough to answer, lips parting upon a wary “yes.”

Shizuo nods at the admission, at the truth he had already known, seen.

He waits for a moment, the hand not on Izaya’s chin clenching into a fist against the wooden table, watching the ripples tear through the small bowl of water. “Has he before?” He dreads and craves the answer in equal parts, and sees a similar contradiction twisting Izaya’s face, betraying his thoughts in a way he doesn’t usually allow. Izaya does not reply, this time, only staring at Shizuo for a few considering seconds before huffing in a way that’s so stubborn and so _Izaya_ – then he’s pulling his face from Shizuo’s grip. Shizuo lets him go, of course he does, but can’t help but shift a little in his chair as Izaya falls to his knees before him.

It’s a dismissal, almost, when Izaya tugs his gaze from Shizuo’s and begins scrubbing at his waistcoat. The mark is long gone now, had dried in the heavy walk back up to the moors, but there’s something purposeful to the way the cloth soaks his waistcoat darker, this time its intention only to clean, to heal. Also, this time it’s Izaya, so Shizuo can’t help but think that will always be okay.

The rush of anger at this reminder, however, is not so clean, nor is it healing, and Shizuo feels something in his blood boil when he remembers who the man was really aiming at. It doesn’t escape him that Izaya still hasn’t answered his question, but as per the game Izaya so often loves to play – of how he hides the answer from you until the end, and claims that of course he was the one that led you to it once you find it – the lack of denial is just as effective as an admission.

“He has, hasn’t he.” Shizuo asks, states, grim and restless as he leans his head back against the chair to look up at the ceiling, as he feels Izaya’s fingers still where they scrub at the fabric over his chest. “He tried to _spit_ on you.”

Izaya sighs, weary, and that’s a confirmation all in itself. The feeling that follows isn’t one Shizuo has felt before, and it’s numbing, thick like tar dripping from the spaces between his ribs.

“You asked me earlier if I was running away. I’m not.” Izaya winces, corrects, in a rare show of transparency, “not exactly. But that doesn’t mean that people wouldn’t wish me too.”

Shizuo absorbs this, mulling over it with frightening clarity due to how much the confession matches his own, sitting dormant in his chest. He’s never wanted the opinions of others to matter, had tried to ignore them to let himself become consumed in his friends, his family, but there was only so much judgement, so much outright hostility, that he could take. In the end his journey up into the moors wasn’t really for those people, but nor was it for himself. Instead, it was for the people he cared about, and how the monstrous caricature that had built up around him in the eyes of others tainted them too.

Yet for all the stale recognition that it elicits in Shizuo’s chest, the fragments of Izaya’s story he has collected are just as different as they are similar. He can’t imagine Izaya ever caring about other’s opinions of him, and he thinks Izaya must feel that way too, which is why it’s so hard to accept how much they do.

“Why do they hate you?” It’s blunt, but Shizuo knows better by now than to dance around honesty, especially since Izaya has probably already figured out what he’s trying to say before he even thinks it. 

“They hate what I do.” The woman from the other day flits around the edges of Shizuo’s memory, but he can’t quite connect the two, can’t quite see how her pure relief could be anything but positive. Really, he’s trying so hard just to understand, but he knows that the more he tries to truly _get_ Izaya the more he’ll be pushed away. 

“Izaya.” He waits for Izaya’s hum of acknowledgement, of permission, before lowering his voice to carry some of the weight of his question. “Do they hate you or your magic?”

Izaya finally looks up, stands up, meeting Shizuo’s eyes as a wry smile twists his lips. “I am my magic.” He places the cloth back into the bowl, and there’s that ripple again as the fabric soaks pink. “So both.” 

It hurts to sit idle and watch as Izaya returns to himself, fists clenching in a show of discomfort, as though he has shared too much. Shizuo doesn’t know how to tell him that he hasn’t, that he asked, that he’s willing to share whatever burden Izaya carries – so he doesn’t. He’s never been one to give up, though, so when Izaya ignores the next call of his name he grows bolder, closing anticipation-shaken fingers around his wrist, holding him back from the isolating security of escape. 

Then, he whispers, “why are you here alone, Izaya? Truly.”

The resignation in Izaya’s sigh is one he regrets having caused, along with the gentle tug of his wrist from Shizuo’s grip. He lets him go and tries hard to ignore the steady sinking in his chest. He wishes he wasn’t so used to it.

Izaya doesn’t leave, though, not immediately, instead staring at Shizuo and attempting to gage anything and everything he’s ever wanted that would lead them here to this, to the barrier Izaya keeps between himself and any other self. Shizuo is asking, and Izaya could never quite get used to the vulnerability of telling, before this. 

His voice is soft when he speaks, and Shizuo feels it bloom in his chest, that damned shred of hope he so relentlessly chases.

“Not yet.”

Shizuo nods once, accepting Izaya’s hesitancy. It strikes him then how long he’s willing to wait for Izaya, for all the words he doesn’t want to give up, doesn’t want Shizuo to take _._ Yet, when Izaya had spoken it sounded less like denial and more like a promise, leaving Shizuo feeling almost giddy at the possibility, at this suggestion of chance. He wonders if Izaya feels it too.

Shizuo isn’t used to this imminent closeness with another, and he doesn’t think Izaya is either, which must be the only explanation for how it feels so good. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's part one! please join me and shizuo in thinking about izaya constantly 
> 
> thank you for reading!  
> [twt](https://twitter.com/lostchuu/)


	3. II: one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> word count: 6000+

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every extra gun scene I include increases how obvious it is that I have never even seen a gun in real life and how I refuse to do any research to remedy that

Part Two

Shizuo can smell the remnants of rain in the air, and see it in the dew of the morning grass. He had heard it against the roof of the cottage, too, pounding on that sturdy brick between the two of them and everything the moors imply. He has come to see himself and Izaya as a collective, or at least not something separate, and he can’t quite pin down the moment in which he stopped feeling like a stranger in Izaya’s home. It’s not a familiar feeling for all that he welcomes it, but somehow it already seems so irreplaceable.

The rain clogged grass soaks the fabric of his shoes as Shizuo breathes in the cool morning air, and he returns to Izaya’s cottage with much more haste than he could ever leave it with, by this point.

Izaya is at the table when Shizuo comes inside, the glint of the gun before him smarting against Shizuo’s eyes. The coolness of the metal matches the set of Izaya’s eyes as he turns, but the smile shaping his lips strips him of any true malice, of those wicked intentions that Shizuo had stopped fearing with every steady summer day that passes. He still sighs, though, at Izaya’s budding request, and shuts the door none too gently behind him.

“Teach me.” He says at once, and Shizuo doesn’t know whether it’s paranoia or his growing knowledge of Izaya that makes it feel so much like revenge. Maybe his attempt to dig at Shizuo’s insecurities is a direct response to Shizuo’s attempts to bare his own just last night, but he had hoped that Izaya had sensed the earnest nature of his request. He figured he must have, if only for his continued presence at all.

He briefly wonders whether it has anything to with the threats of _witch_ capable of rending Izaya’s respite on the moors in two, or if it’s the familiar urge he felt, once, to be able to protect oneself in a way not so entirely incriminating.

Maybe it’s none of those things, and maybe it’s all of them, but Shizuo figures that trying to pinpoint Izaya’s motivations would prove as difficult as it would be to avoid them entirely. Upon that, Shizuo surrenders to Izaya’s will in a way he has come to expect, telling by the smug tilt of his lips. His smile has all the satisfaction of knowing before even asking, alongside that slight risk of being wrong, that knifes edge of uncertainty.

He wasn’t wrong, though, and it leaves Shizuo wondering, absurdly, if he ever is.

For all its ease, Shizuo’s acquiescence wasn’t entirely selfless, as he can’t help but hope that sharing this part of himself will prompt Izaya to do the same. His hope is relentless and fuelled mainly by Izaya’s lack of outright aversion to his attempts at closeness, so surely if he keeps running, he’ll have to reach somewhere eventually.

-

They head outside shortly after, Izaya trailing in Shizuo’s wake as he finds a bottle to place out against the long line of the horizon. Izaya is staring at him when he rises, and he tips his head to the side slightly as he points the gun up and out. Shizuo can feel the phantom pressure between his eyes. He stills at once, sputtering a short ‘what are you-’ as he hears the gun cock, then the ominous click of the trigger. It takes him a moment to convince himself that his heart isn’t actually in his throat, for all that he feels like he can taste it.

His following huff is disbelieving, and the steady breaths he takes to calm himself only steal the air from the moors rather than expelling the annoyance clogging up his chest. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“We need more bullets.” Is all that Izaya says by way of answer, and when Shizuo glares up at him his grin is sharp. Shizuo could think of a fair few things he needs right now, and, actually, more bullets is surprisingly high up on the list.

He makes the decision, then, that his temper will outlast Izaya’s insistence on testing it. It’s not so much a battle as it would have seemed mere days ago, but there’s still that flicker of challenge, of competition, that adds miles to Shizuo’s fuse in a way nothing else could.

Once he returns with more bullets and a little less irritation, Shizuo snatches the gun from Izaya’s hands, placing the bullets in with slightly less haste than he usually would as novice eyes watch carefully. Izaya doesn’t look away from Shizuo’s hands and the movements they make, but he still has that goddamned smile.

“I shouldn’t even let you hold it after that,” Shizuo comments when he’s done, flicking the gun shut with a too-violent jerk of his hand, handing it back to Izaya with force enough that he’ll feel the metal against his skin. Izaya looks up at him, eyes bright, gun hanging heavy in his hand at his side.

“Oh, come on,” now he’s lifting it, weighing it in his hands, juggling it just above the last thread of Shizuo’s patience, “shooting you would have been rather counterproductive, wouldn’t it?” Shizuo stays silent, and Izaya shows teeth. “Obviously I knew it was empty. I’m not an idiot, Shizuo.”

Ignoring Izaya is the most sure-fire of catching his attention and then keeping it, so Shizuo allows himself this, that satisfying dip of wick into oil. He shoves Izaya slightly to the left, aligned with the bottle and frowning now.

“Hold it up, both hands.” Izaya follows warily, as if he’s not the one who forced Shizuo’s hand into this, as if the weapon isn’t heavy in his own. “Get it level with your eyes, like there’s a string between yourself and the target, the gun between you.” Izaya shifts slightly, and Shizuo shrugs at his shallow instructions for an action that’s become not much more than instinct. “Then shoot.”

“Why do I have to do it with both arms?” Izaya grumbles, and then shoots before Shizuo can offer up an answer, and far before he could brace himself for the bang that feels as though it rattles his bones. The recoil sends Izaya back at once, thumping against Shizuo’s chest with an ‘oof’ that makes Shizuo smile, both entirely unauthorised.

“That’s why.”

Izaya presses his shoulder, hard, into Shizuo’s chest as he shoves off him – Shizuo can feel the pressure of it in his skin, friction against his bones – and takes aim again. He inhales once, and any focus he manages to summon escapes out onto the moors, towed on the stray bullet.

Shizuo plants his hands on his hips and squints out over the fields, finding no bullet but one very intact glass bottle.

“Bit wide, I’d say,” he hums, and Izaya makes a sound like a hiss, all prickly.

“Shut up.” He turns back to Shizuo now, arm limp at his side and the gun hanging precariously loose in his thin fingers, brows furrowed. “This isn’t fun,” he moans, accuses maybe, and Shizuo can’t quite restrain the way his eyes roll.

There’s something a little deeper than that, though, that raises his hackles at the thought of this violence being easy, being _fun._ It’s dangerous, and dirty, and yet so much more acceptable than the strength Shizuo carries in his fingertips simply as a biproduct of being alive. To shoot, to take life and remain so distant, is seen as nothing, and is normal in every way that Shizuo tries to be. He carries the burden of his strength with him daily, and only the reminder of the cloud of magic that surrounds Izaya, consumes him, allows the tension to bleed from his lips.

“It’s not meant to be fun.” He fancies himself as collected in this moment, but Izaya is here with him with all of his eager perception, and his lack of reply speaks louder than any objection he could voice. They stare at each other as the seconds pass, weighing up, acknowledging, and, as never before this, before Izaya – accepting.

“Here.” Shizuo says at once, spinning Izaya around by his shoulders and then tugging him back against him, fingers splayed hot just below his ribs. It catches Izaya off guard in a way Shizuo knows is foreign to him, and the way Izaya tenses against him – but doesn’t leave, never leaves – feels nothing short of intoxicating.

“Shizuo-”

“Watch,” Shizuo interrupts, bringing Izaya’s arm up alongside his own, chin just grazing against his shoulder as he levels out the gun, despite feeling unsteady himself, down to his very core.

“There,” he rumbles, voice low. He braces himself for a shot that never comes, and then hides his smile in the electric air near Izaya’s neck, smug in way he thinks Izaya would be proud of if he weren’t so absorbed, currently. He composes himself, ducks in again, whispers slow against Izaya’s ear, “shoot.”

This time Shizuo barely hears the bang, and his bones are already rattling when jagged shards of glass cut through the air, throwing light out and up up up, into the sun. 

“Oh,” Izaya says softly, near breathless, and Shizuo has never felt this full.

“Like that,” he murmurs, still and steady until Izaya comes alive in his arms, heaving his weight against them. Izaya doesn’t seem calm, but nor does he feel like he’s trying to escape. He still hisses, though, as Shizuo tightens his grip, pulling Izaya back against him and up onto his toes, thinking all the while how much Izaya feels like the familiar weight of a gun in his hands.

“Not so fast,” Shizuo eases the actual gun out of Izaya’s grip, the metal cold against his skin, and somehow sharp like Izaya’s nails digging intermittently into the arm across his waist. “I need to go get another bottle, and I don’t trust you with this yet.”

With that he lets him go, and watches as Izaya just catches himself, shoulders and head held ever high.

Izaya is still looking out across the moors when Shizuo returns with another bottle, stood lonely as a figure from a painting, as a shadow surrounded by harsh sun. Shizuo finds he doesn’t worry much about the glass beneath his feet when he’s watching Izaya.

Shizuo comes to stand with him once the bottle is in place, holding the gun out – muttering “Izaya” when he doesn’t immediately reach for it.

Then Izaya’s eyes are on him, and he catches Shizuo’s gaze in a hold that he doesn’t think he’d ever try break from. He never knows quite what Izaya is thinking, and it’s nice, he thinks, to be so at peace that he doesn’t even want to. Izaya’s eyes hold all the weight of the wind behind them, and Shizuo has never felt so wholly consumed

Izaya’s lips part upon a breath, or a word, and then settle on silence as he snatches the gun from Shizuo’s hands and stares at the bottle against the horizon.

“I’ll get this one,” he promises. There’s something on his cheeks that looks like a blush, and something else that looks like a frown, but his words are determined in a way that Shizuo could never imagine challenging, so he doesn’t.

Instead, he grins, fondly, at the back of Izaya’s head. “I’m sure you will.”

-

Shizuo wakes early the following morning, the thin blanket slipping from his shoulders as he sits up, stiff hands rubbing his face, soaking up the fading warmth. He hears wind against brick, the creak of the sofa, the soft turn of a page that the cottage would feel empty without. Izaya, of course, was up even earlier, hunched over the table as concentration scores lines across his forehead.

He has stopped acknowledging Shizuo – rather, doesn’t acknowledge anything at all when there’s a spell spread out before him – so Shizuo keeps to himself, pottering around the cottage, rooting through cupboards that have long since become familiar. His mind begins to wander as he waits for the water to boil, as he rubs the delicate petals of Izaya’s tea between his fingers and sets two china cups out on the surface. A yawn stretches his face apart as he recalls the way Izaya’s determination had stretched out the precious day, only relenting as the sky had gone dark, drowning the targets in an inky black.

Shizuo can still hear the shatter of glass.

The bubbling water draws Shizuo back out of his memory, and he carefully makes the tea following the steps Izaya had taught him. He carries it over to Izaya after letting it cool, lest Izaya burn himself in his immersion in his work as he has done one too many times before. He remembers how it fills his chest with guilt – never personal, but it twists his stomach all the same.

Izaya mutters a distracted thank you as thin fingers curl around the tea, eyes not raising to Shizuo. Almost as if breaking from tradition, today Shizuo doesn’t settle at the table to lose himself in Izaya the way the other does in his magic, and instead strays further, leaning against the wall. He still can’t quite keep his eyes from Izaya, though.

“I’m going into town.” The words knock the breath from Shizuo’s lungs, and it takes more than a moment to realise where they came from, that they were voiced from his own lips. Izaya looks similarly incredulous, because now he’s _looking,_ and Shizuo gets lost in the nuances of justification.

“Really?” Izaya says after a short while, and isn’t that just the question Shizuo is asking himself. He doesn’t know where the sudden thought came from, but does know that he can’t quite drive it away now it’s been voiced aloud, like an itch. He pauses, digs blunt teeth into his bottom lip until he feels it tingle, nods.

Izaya stares at him for a few more taxing seconds, then shakes his head as if acquiescing to a whim, to a child’s request, something light and easy. As if it doesn’t mean more than that, to Shizuo. To them both. He blows stolen air through pursed lips; “okay.” He’s looking back at his book now, fingers tapping lightly against the yellowed paper. “I’m sure you’ll be more well received than I would be, at least.”

Shizuo huffs through the sudden tension of a smile, and decides just this once not to tell Izaya how wrong he is.

-

The sun is setting once Shizuo reaches the town, and he begins his pilgrimage through the streets of his past as one would enter a battlefield. That is cautious, yet with all that faux confidence that keeps his shoes from gluing to the ground – stumping him at the final hurdle, before the gates of Troy.

There’s an itch of self-consciousness beneath his skin, and the further he steps down the dusty road the angrier it gets. It demands he hide, demands penance, demands anything that would shrink him into something lacking consequence, something not to be noticed. Shizuo feels as though the offering of his presence is deceptive, more for his own good than that of the people he passes, ducking his head against the possible interrogation of their eyes. He came here for himself, and aimed to return to the moors with all the comfort anonymity provides, yet what does he offer the people here in turn? All he has is his fear, too many years heavy with contempt. All the good will of a Trojan horse.

The buildings close in on him with each step, leaning inwards, over him, blocking out the sky. People run past him, kids around him, and he ducks against lines of washing that flutter in the wind, blocking out a clear path through the streets so similar to the ones Shizuo walks over and over again in his head, on busy nights and tiring days. It’s something close to too much, all the noise and the distraction, no matter how much he tries to lose himself in it.

The rush has him thinking back to older days, to when the streets he grew up in didn’t feel so foreign. He had kept to himself even then, but once the strength that broke his bones and stole the remnants of his youth emerged, eyes that once didn’t spare him a glance became fixated, angry, scared. No matter what he did or didn’t do, after that he never quite felt alone. Before, hardly any people knew him, but suddenly everyone knew _of_ him, of the strength that overtook him, that overwhelming shadow.

Not for the first time, he wonders if it would be easier if the ache of guilt was all he felt. Instead, there’s shame, chasing so relentlessly after the satisfaction he feels when his fists hit flesh. It sticks to his skin in the aftermath for weeks, months – just as long as the guilt, and then some. Bittersweet was how he once thought to describe it, but felt sickened at the connotations of positivity, as if this was something to relish. It left a sourness on his tongue where people thought there to be only sweetness.

Accidents, he called most of them, but it’s only so long before a pattern began to emerge with Shizuo dead centre. Sometimes, the sweetness remained even then. Shizuo feels sick.

This guilt, this shame, of course, is why he allowed the stares of mixed parts anger and fear, and how he endured them with a bowed head and quickened pace. It would be easier to ignore if he thought it to be unwarranted. In the end, he can scrub his reputation from his skin, but he can never quite empty all the shame from his blood. He wishes he could slice through that thin paper, let thick red ink pour to the ground, away from him. If only it wouldn’t stain his clothes.

He never stops thinking about it, but Shizuo finds he doesn’t feel the same urge to bleed upon the moors. There’s something about them - and maybe something about Izaya – that keeps the itch beneath his skin at bay, caged. His anger had consumed him only once, and that familiar shame was dampened slightly by a wet cloth and soft words, in candlelight.

The town he walks through now is not his own, his face is not one that is known, and so the more he looks around the more he realises that no one is looking back. Those that do look not at him, but at his clothes, or the fall of his hair, or the wander of his eyes. They never see what he is, or was, or is capable of. The realisation that the only one he is important to is himself settles light upon his chest, releasing a weight off his bones.

It feels like how he always imagined the bleeding would.

So, he walks until he feels like nothing, and then until the streets become more familiar, that prickle of something he’s never before wanted to acknowledge as fear returning. It’s almost too much, again, so he breathes and turns around, to return home.

He thought _home._

-

The grind of his shoes against dusty earth remains the same, as with the whistle of wind through long grass, and Shizuo feels light with it, airy. Something about the winding path up into the moors doesn’t feel so much like exile as it once did, and the cold breeze hisses into steam against his hot skin. The grass thickens in his approach, dew dampening the hems of his trousers. Soft wet rain falls against dark stone. The cottage blurs into focus against the purple smoke of the horizon, and Shizuo indulges himself, again again again, and thinks home.

The ever-creaky door announces his presence in a way words never could, and then there’s Izaya against the corner of the sofa, a blanket strewn over him, a thick book bunching the swathes of dark fabric against his lap. He squints up at Shizuo, shakes his head, looks away – dips with the new weight of Shizuo on the sofa next to him. The fireplace crackles against the silence around them, and low heat oozes through the room leaving Shizuo feeling heavy, formless, like melting wax.

“I’m not asking how it went.” Izaya mutters, and Shizuo melts further, reshapes, head tipping against the back of the worn sofa to look at Izaya. He looks sharper, somehow, in candlelight. The fire dances, and the shadows it throws cut across Izaya’s face, skimming the soft curve of his nose, soaking into the almost black of his eyes and hair. The words on the pages before him curve intelligible shapes into Shizuo’s mind. He wonders if the more he stares the less foreign they’ll feel, and wonders, too, if the same could be said for Izaya.

His days thus far have been a carefully choreographed dance between comfort and caution – always caution, as much as Izaya tries to pretend otherwise. Izaya’s attempts to pull the wool over Shizuo’s eyes only serves to remind him that Izaya has something, or is something, that he believes needs hiding. It frustrates Shizuo, and begs the question of what could possibly be worth hiding from a man who is so resigned to having nothing. 

The steady weight of Izaya’s gaze is on him now, so Shizuo returns to the small room with little purpose other than to offer Izaya whatever simmering intensity he can in return. His eyebrow raises in question, and Shizuo’s shrug is as deliberate as his lack of response. He feels no need to form one, and would instead rather remain, languid, in Izaya’s undivided attention. He likes the warmth of it.

Izaya returns, shortly, to his foreign words, and Shizuo allows the satisfied flip in his stomach at the growing glow on his cheeks. Then he wants more, like one wants air, and Shizuo decides to peak through the wool.

“Why did you let me in?” The _why did you trust me_ remains unspoken, but the stilling of Izaya’s eyes against the crinkled, yellowing page tell him he heard them well enough. He composes his words as Shizuo can never quite compose himself, tastes them first, cautious as their edges catch on his tongue.

“I felt sorry for you,” he says, and Shizuo tastes them too, and they’re sour. It’s both not the answer he wanted and not the answer he believes Izaya would give. His forehead itches with the static of sweeping fabric.

“Was that a joke?” He hazards, and Izaya’s lips curl. Shizuo wonders, if he parted them, whether he’d see blood on his teeth.

“Yes.”

A sigh, sweet with relief. “You’re tricky, aren’t you?”

His teeth are white, Shizuo notes, and sharp. “Amongst other things.”

Shizuo thinks he doesn’t want to bleed tonight, so pulls the conversation back to safer territory, instead satisfying his sudden desire to needle, to _tease._ “Then it can only have been out of the kindness of your heart.” He believes he’s learnt enough about Izaya for the accusation to be just that: to accuse just as it once would have joked. Still, he enjoys the unhappy crinkle of Izaya’s nose.

Izaya, like always, teeters briefly on that knifes edge of passivity, and, like always, chooses to slice himself in two over it. He shuts his book, and the soft humph of it only just reaches Shizuo’s ears before it’s launched through the air towards him. Shizuo frowns, catches, flexes his fingers against worn leather.

Izaya seems pleased and bares his teeth in that familiar parody of a smile. He clicks his fingers, and the crack of skin against skin balances out the sudden snap of fire as the book in Shizuo’s hand sets alight. Shizuo curses, first, then stands and throws it at the hungry fire in the hearth. The fire groans, doubles in size, strains up to tickle against dark stone. Its hunger consumes him too, deforms the malleable wax of his control, has Shizuo snatching Izaya’s wrist, pulling him slightly from his seat, his throne. The blanket pools over Izaya’s still bent legs, and Shizuo feels some of his anger abate at the rest of him, strained, exposed. Still so calm, though, so in control that Shizuo can barely stand it.

At the contact the fire burns brighter, bellows louder, painting the silhouette of Shizuo’s anger over Izaya in solid shadows. Stray flames curl out of the glowing mass. They warm Shizuo’s back.

“ _Izaya_ ,” Shizuo growls, hot, frustrated, almost skittish with stray static.

“Shizuo,” Izaya murmurs, letting himself hang, lax, in Shizuo’s grip. Shizuo watches the light of the fire swarm in the black of his eyes, feels it drag scores against his skin, leaving him raw. It’s then, at last, that Shizuo realises the static has always been there. It’s electric, earthy, _Izaya’s._

Shizuo lowers himself until he’s kneeling on the floor before Izaya, a poor man’s supplication, his wrist still hot in his grip. He wonders briefly if this is the Rapture.

His touch is careful – something he would recognise as reverence, later – as he turns Izaya’s hand in his own, facing it up to the roof of the cottage, out towards the heavy sky. He runs long fingers against the back of it, extended, then curls them over the tips of Izaya’s with all the poorly restrained intensity of the raging fire at his back. He wonders if Izaya can feel his hands trembling.

Shizuo stills only once Izaya’s hand is cradled in both of his own, palm up, aflame, Shizuo’s skin dripping from fragile charcoal bones.

“Show me,” Shizuo whispers.

Izaya’s lashes dip, and his hand curls into a fist atop Shizuo’s, knuckles sharp against his liquid flesh. Then his fingers unfurl one by one, but stay slightly bent, cradling the single flame flickering above his palm as if it were life itself. To Shizuo, it is.

The flame throws finicky light over the soft groove of Izaya’s lifeline, against his face gone gentle, and Shizuo forgets how to breathe, choked all at once by phantom smoke. Time passes slowly, and Shizuo watches forests burn and cities fall in all that horrendous power Izaya keeps close, just beneath his skin. Shizuo laughs, gently, and the flame trembles.

“It’s incredible.” He murmurs, and Izaya’s answering grin burns.

-

The sky is dark when Shizuo returns to his former civilisation a day later. He could see the few blurry lights of the town as he headed down from the moors, still shrouded in that thick darkness, still safe, then. He’s safe now, of course, but it’s easy to forget the power brimming beneath his skin when he’s with Izaya. The word safe feels redefined, and Shizuo brings it with him, still fragile, vulnerable as though fresh from birth.

He’s closer to the streets he once walked this time, and he hears the bustle of the town from deep underwater. It’s muffled, something distant to himself, even as he sees crowds of people laughing, shouting, gathered in the warm light of open doors. They shove against each other, flit around like moths at a flame, and Shizuo feels a familiar pull deep in his bones, that fatal wish to fly.

As he thinks of fire, he inevitably thinks of Izaya, and then he’s ducking through the door to a tavern so like the one that needles its way into his nightmares. Its cosy inside, busy, but not in the way that makes his palms sweat. He sits at the bar, head held low and dispelling any attempts at portraying confidence, or at least not the vicious fear that nips at his skin. The drink he orders comes quickly after a hoarse request, but the amber liquid does little to sooth the itch inside him, so here he remains, on edge, an unstable element.

Shizuo sits and breathes and tries helplessly to figure out if he can actually feel eyes on him, or whether he simply expects to. His head is heavy, hot, and he hunches his shoulders as the room rushes and swims around him. It would only take one short glance for Shizuo to look around and determine whether the eyes are as big as he’s built them to be, in his head, but there’s a subtle tension in his spine that keeps him in place. It feels as though it has the power to snap him in two.

Time passes languidly, torturously, and eventually the ice gripping his skeleton begins to thaw, and he settles back into himself – takes the liberty to enjoy the last sips of his drink, somewhat.

There he basks in the warm light like that of the sun, and there a shadow falls upon him. He turns stiffly and hopes to any god that he doesn’t look like he’s shrinking back, as much as he knows he is. A woman is stood before him, her fists clenched at her sides. There’s a dewy wetness in her eyes that spills down over her cheeks as he meets them. Her eyes seem almost to sparkle in the dim light, and Shizuo thinks faintly that she’s beautiful, soft, like a peach.

“You shouldn’t show your face here,” she whispers, and the hot embers of her voice sizzle against Shizuo’s skin. Shizuo feels his throat go dry, and refrains from reaching up, refrains from moving at all, lest he spook her.

“I-” He tries, but it’s so painfully weak, so nothing that that fresh tears spill down her pinkened cheeks, and Shizuo feels so utterly hopeless.

“How _dare_ you show your face here.” She’s stronger now, firmer, eyebrows furrowed tight and crumpling up her pretty face. Shizuo can’t bear to look at her, so he lets his eyes fall down, and then suddenly there’s a sharp snap of heat against his cheek. His head snaps up as her hand draws back, and she’s shaking now, flushed with her outburst, with raw emotion that Shizuo can’t even begin to fault her for.

She does flinch back as he lifts his hand, her bottom lip trembling just so, and then she turns and runs out into the darkness, alone. Shizuo’s cheek feels hot against his palm, against rough fingertips, feverish. As the woman vanishes, she leaves Shizuo to wallow in the remains of her hatred, and so caught up is he that he falls forward slightly at a push to his shoulder – moveable, moved, vulnerable, for perhaps the first time. 

His hand slips from his face as he turns, as something within him starts to vibrate, to boil with violent intensity, barely contained. The man stood before him is stout, his jacket threadbare, normal and harmless if it weren’t for the vicious curl of his lip, the angry flush of his cheeks, darker than the woman’s were.

“We all hoped you’d gone off to die,” he spits, eyes bloodshot, predicting Shizuo’s lack of response before they sink into the silence, “you should have done, you fucking cunt.” He’s swinging his fist, now, and Shizuo stands so fast he hears the crack of his stool against the floor, like the man’s wrist in his grip, and tries desperately to fight against that agonising heat, but the man’s still frothing, shouting- “you’re a monster, a ki-” then he’s twitching, eyes rolling back and dripping thick blood, from his ears too, painting black scores down his cheeks until it gathers, thick at his chin, dripping to the floor.

Shizuo releases his grip as if it is not his own as the man falls unconscious, then to the floor in a heap, with a wet thud. Shizuo would think him to be lifeless if not for the unsteady straining of his chest. People are shouting, but now Shizuo is underwater again, and a sick bolt of realisation near drowns him, then incites him to push through the gathering crowd, out into that familiar darkness, thick as he swims against it and up into the moors.

-

The wooden door slams open against cold brick as Shizuo bursts back into the cottage, Izaya’s cottage, looking for the man inside it with frantic, too fast eyes.

“Izaya?” He calls, but garners no response. The cottage is hauntingly dark, the fireplace is but black ash, the cup at the table no longer steaming. Then there’s a flicker of candlelight over the ceiling beams, a gentle thud, back to darkness, and Shizuo barely has time to swallow his heart back down into his chest before he’s running across the room and up the creaking stairs.

As he reaches the top, he sees Izaya, and finally swallows his aching heart. He’s strewn out across the floor next to an open book, panting wet breaths against his hand, curled up before his face. There’s a candle next to him, now unlit and on its side, a small pool of cooling wax seeping into the cracks in the floor. Izaya’s eyes are fluttering weakly, open and closed, his dark lashes trembling against too pale cheeks.

Shizuo swallows as if to loosen the sudden stiffening of his jaw, and then sighs out the tension through tight lips. He steps over to Izaya and lifts him off the floor by his arms, tone soft for all that his eyes are impossibly hard, and so impossibly, helplessly confused.

“Let’s get you to bed, little witch.”

Izaya’s faint huff of response speaks to his condition, and Shizuo has never before felt so cold here in the cottage, without fire lighting up the room, warming his back. His eyes slip shut once he is more firmly in Shizuo’s grasp, and Shizuo realises some of the sickly discomfort clogging his chest comes from this unwilling display of weakness, this vulnerability that Izaya fends off just as relentlessly as he breathes – a humanity, of some sort.

The floorboards creak beneath Shizuo’s feet as he walks, with Izaya, to what he assumes is his bed: a small pile of sheets up against the wall and beneath the window, lit up in the moonlight, all exposed. He lies Izaya down on the thin mattress and watches him use his remaining strength to pull the covers over his chest once Shizuo hands them to him. Izaya’s breaths are quickened from either cold or exhaustion. Depletion, maybe.

He stares down at Izaya lay there beneath the moonlight – some fragile, volatile thing, and at once neither of those, and at once so much more. Shizuo inhales deeply, extending a hand towards this thing before him, and pushes the hair off its forehead, and away from those piercing eyes watching Shizuo in turn. Izaya’s forehead is cold and damp against his fingertips, and Shizuo sighs, weary, all strung out.

“You were watching me,” he says, and doesn’t quite know whether he means today, yesterday, now, always.

Izaya doesn’t answer, just stares back at Shizuo before letting his eyelids fall down over dark, dark eyes, as white fingers and bones curl into the fabric around him, threatening to tear through. Shizuo indulges himself for a few more timeless moments, wondering faintly if the rest of the world still trudges on whilst he is so consumed here, looking at Izaya and everything he’s capable of spread out before him and knowing still, somehow, that there’s so much more.

Sometime later, maybe only minutes, Shizuo gets to his feet with a grunt and walks over to the rickety stairs. He places one foot against them, only just certain.

He does not jump when Izaya speaks, but he does listen so intently that it’s a wonder his own ears don’t fail and break and bleed.

“I did this for myself, and only myself.” Shizuo pauses in his decent, stays in waiting, “do not insult me by believing it to be anything like your own fault.”

Shizuo stays, still, for a moment longer, seeing flushed cheeks, blood, fire – and then he continues down the stairs without a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 643: I still haven't fully figured out the magic system and at this point I'm too afraid to try
> 
> thank you for reading!


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